College of Architecture, Art and Planninghttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/3602015-08-02T20:44:25Z2015-08-02T20:44:25ZMaking Policy With Communities: Research and Development in the Department of Economic DevelopmentGiloth, Roberthttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405362015-07-25T05:02:22Z1991-01-01T00:00:00ZMaking Policy With Communities: Research and Development in the Department of Economic Development
Giloth, Robert
Robert Giloth, who had been a community organizer in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, returned from PhD studies at Cornell in 1985 to assume the directorship of the Research and Development (R&D) Division within Robert Mier's Department of Economic Development. R&D was a unit free of service responsibilities; Giloth called it a "free space" and it was well situated to undertake studies of neighborhood initiated projects and interests: it undertook "collaborative special projects and problem solving with community groups [on] loan funds, resource recycling demonstrations, plant closing responses, business incubators, worker buyouts, and industry plans." Giloth suggests case studies in several of these topics.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZPlanned Manufacturing Districts: How a Community Initiative Became City PolicyDucharme, Donnahttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405352015-07-25T05:02:20Z1991-01-01T00:00:00ZPlanned Manufacturing Districts: How a Community Initiative Became City Policy
Ducharme, Donna
Donna Ducharme was the founder and executive director of the Local Economic and Employment Development Council of Chicago's New City YMCA at the time of writing. She later became the Deputy Commissioner of Planning for Industrial Development (1993-96), and then CEO of the Delta Institute providing environmental planning services to local manufacturers and others. Ducharme had been working with unemployed youth at the New City YMCA in Chicago's Near Northside when she noticed factory jobs disappearing as a result of real estate development pressures. Gentrifying owners and developers wanted to convert old loft buildings, found factories noisy and nuisances, and factories were closing their doors in part because of neighborhood pressures. In the late 1970s, taking time to study planning at MIT she came upon the idea of using zoning powers to protect factory jobs. Upon her return to Chicago, Ducharme began advocating "Planned Manufacturing Districts" (PMDs) in the nearby Goose Island industrial corridor and other locations. In this piece she describes the years of advocacy that finally resulted in city hall support. The story is carried further, notably in Joel Rast's Remaking Chicago (1999), but this is where it began.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZPrinciples of unity between members of the Santa Monicans for Renters Rights CoalitionSanta Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR)http://hdl.handle.net/1813/405262015-07-21T05:02:52Z1981-01-01T00:00:00ZPrinciples of unity between members of the Santa Monicans for Renters Rights Coalition
Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR)
This is a campaign statement and program adopted by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR), the coalition formed from the Santa Monica Democratic Club, the local chapter of the Campaign for Economic Democracy and the Santa Monica Fair Housing Alliance in 1978. They succeeded with rent control in 1979, and were joined for the 1981 election by the Ocean Park Electoral Network in a (successful) attempt to win control of the Santa Monica city council. Their purpose was to broaden the constituency from the initial focus on rent control, to a broader program encompassing housing in general, and a comprehensive set of city issues. They had set up issue papers on such topics as crime, economic development, government structure, social services, the elderly, women, energy conservation reflecting the ideas percolating through their constituent organizations. The "Principles of Unity" served not only to announce a set of goals for electoral campaigning purposes, but also to bring together the main factions "progressive" who opposed the landlord and developer-friendly policies of the previous majority on the council. Under the initial leadership of Ruth Goldway, SMRR was to hold the dominant position in city government for several decades despite the gutting of rent control -- its initial main identifier -- by the state legislature and courts over the next few years. In a city with a large majority of renters, SMRR continued to hold their loyalty despite the declining scope and force of the rent control ordinance itself.
1981-01-01T00:00:00ZHow the Progressives Won in Santa MonicaShearer, Derekhttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405252015-07-21T05:02:55Z1982-01-01T00:00:00ZHow the Progressives Won in Santa Monica
Shearer, Derek
Rent control's passage in 1979 was the electoral breakthrough that established Santa Monicans for Renters Rights; SMRR's "Principles of Unity" laid out a comprehensive set of wider platform. The attainment of a solid electoral majority on the city council in 1981 set the city on a course to implement these goals. Here Derek Shearer, who had been involved in each of these previous efforts, describes the electoral campaign itself and its ten year background of demographic change and small battles that led to a solid electoral base. Shearer's argument is that the deep pockets commercial interests, organized as a "growth machine" broadcasting the general appeal of land development, could be defeated by a combination of canny and energetic grassroots organizing and the underlying weakness of commercial interests in the time of retrenchment as the 1970s ended. The article lays out the details as played out in the electoral process.
1982-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Battle for City Hall: What Do We Fight Over?Simmons, Louisehttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405232015-07-21T05:02:46Z1996-09-01T00:00:00ZThe Battle for City Hall: What Do We Fight Over?
Simmons, Louise
Simmons was part of People for Change, a combination third party and community coalition that won control of the Hartford City Council in 1991 under then-mayor Carrie Saxon Perry. Nicholas Carbone's period of poverty-fighting policies (1969-79) had given way to conservative takeover and conflict while the city's financial condition worsened. There were progressive gains through the later 1980s: a struggle over the effort to implement linkage, labor mobilization around a strike at Colt Firearms, a Legislative Electoral Action Program (LEAP) supported progressive candidates in 1987, and competition with the initially dominant Democratic Party grew. Here Simmons provides detail of her coalition's efforts -- ultimately unsuccessful -- to improve the situation through the 1991-93 period of council control.
1996-09-01T00:00:00ZThe City as a Real Estate InvestorCarbone, Nicholashttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405222015-07-21T05:01:53Z1981-05-07T00:00:00ZThe City as a Real Estate Investor
Carbone, Nicholas
Carbone had been deputy mayor and city council leader for a decade (1969-1979) when he was defeated in a bid for an expanded mandate and the mayoralty. While in office he led the city in a series of policies to counter poverty and financial difficulties. One feature was a series of development agreements whereby the city provided property -- often abandoned or decrepit -- in return for developer agreements to provide local jobs and affordable housing. In this transcribed talk, Carbone provides the rationale and accomplishments in this and other city initiatives in his period of city council leadership.
Transcript of the lecture delivered at Cornell University, Department of City and Regional Planning, May 7, 1981.
1981-05-07T00:00:00ZDecentralized Development: From Theory to PracticeMier, RobertMoe, Karihttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405202015-07-21T05:02:22Z1991-01-01T00:00:00ZDecentralized Development: From Theory to Practice
Mier, Robert; Moe, Kari
Robert Mier had been Commissioner of Economic Development, Kari Moe in the Mayors Office in the Harold Washington administration. Here they draw on that experience for a well referenced and detailed account of the Department of Economic Development (DED). They describe its policy roots in Chicago's neighborhood movement. They reference the Chicago Workshop on Economic Development (CWED), Moe's role carrying that background into the Washington campaign and administration, while Mier points out his own experience teaching planning at UIC working with neighborhood organizations which later became "delegate agencies" working with DED. The chapter goes on to describe the struggle to create a neighborhood oriented and decentralized organizational culture in the face of Washington's political needs to succeed with "big bang" projects like the White Sox and Bears' stadiums, Wrigley Field lights, and a new central public library.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZChicago Politics and Community Development: A Social Movement PerspectiveGills, Doughttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405192015-07-21T05:02:54Z1991-01-01T00:00:00ZChicago Politics and Community Development: A Social Movement Perspective
Gills, Doug
Doug Gills, with John Betancur, did a series of books and other pieces on community organizing in the aftermath of the Washington mayoralty in the Richard M. Daley administration in the 1990s. He had earlier done a dissertation on the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment, and co-authored a book on the election of Harold Washington in 1983. Here he provides a summary of the enlargement of support coalitions basic to that election.
1991-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Washington PapersCommittee to Elect Harold Washington Mayor of Chicagohttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405182015-07-21T05:00:53Z1983-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Washington Papers
Committee to Elect Harold Washington Mayor of Chicago
This is a campaign document, presented as a guide to the "transition" following Washington's victory in the general election in May 1983. Reflecting the work of numerous committees, the document lays out general goals in sections on Jobs, Health, Crime and Community Safety, Housing, Neighborhoods, Education, Women's Issues, Senior Issues, Art and Culture, Energy and Fiscal Policy.
1983-01-01T00:00:00Z"Chicago Works Together": 1984 Chicago Development PlanCity of Chicagohttp://hdl.handle.net/1813/405172015-07-21T05:01:37Z1984-05-01T00:00:00Z"Chicago Works Together": 1984 Chicago Development Plan
City of Chicago
Commissioned by Mayor Harold Washington and directed by Economic Development Commissioner Robert Mier, who convened key department heads in a series of retreats in the winter and spring of 1984. Mier provided them with copies of the transition document The Washington Papers to emphasize themes like "jobs, not real estate" and "balanced development" that had emerged in community meetings and during the 1983 election campaign. Washington had caught the neighborhood sentiment and sought to reverse decades-long practices of the earlier Richard J. Daley political machine which gave priority to downtown and corporate interests over those of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Chicago Works Together was framed to implement the campaign commitments, and became a thematic guidepost supporting such efforts through a set of city agencies.
1984-05-01T00:00:00Z